The American economy is growing. It's not roaring, but it's
growing, and at a good pace.

According to the
latest figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real US
gross domestic product (GDP) rose at an annualized rate of 2.8% in
the third quarter of 2013, which covered July through
September.

For comparison, the long-term trend rate in US GDP growth is
about 2% per year.

This year's fast GDP growth underlines one of the great myths of
economic statistics: the myth that growth benefits everyone, or at
least most people.

Under the great economics assumption of "ceteris paribus" growth
does benefit everyone. "Ceteris paribus" is Latin for "everything
else the same."

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If the overall structure of the economy remains the same, then
higher GDP means more income for everyone.

Unfortunately, the overall structure of the economy has been
changing rapidly in recent years, and not for the better.

Corporate revenues may be increasing slowly as the economy grows
by two or three percent per year, but corporate profits are
exploding. So are executive salaries and bonuses.

We are witnessing a massive shift in the structure of the
economy away from benefits for ordinary workers and retirees in
favor of a small number of relatively rich and powerful people.

The latest economic statistics illustrate this. The Bureau of
Economic Analysis doesn't collect data on income distribution (why
not?) but it does collect data on after-tax disposable income.

After-tax disposable income has been rising at a rate of around
4.5% this year, or about 3.5% after adjusting for inflation.

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Yet we know from
Census Bureau data that the median income -- the income of the
typical person -- has not increased at all for several years. In
fact, real median income is still more than 7% below 2007
levels.

That's despite the fact that the economy as a whole has now
bounced back to well above 2007 output levels.

Economic growth? Yes. Ceteris paribus? No. Everything else has
not remained the same. The economy is bigger than it was in 2007,
but it's a different economy.

And let's remember: the 2007 economy was nothing to write home
about. In fact, the 2000s were already one of the worst decades in
economic history before the recession hit. We only forget that
because the 2010s are shaping up to be even worse.